India scraps $500 million ATGM deal

In a major move, India has scrapped the $500 million deal for Israeli anti-tank-guided-missiles. At the same time, the Ministry of Defense has asked the state-owned Defense Research Development Organization to indigenously develop and produce man-portable anti-tank-guided-missile for the India Army to meet their requirements.

India was almost on the verge of signing the deal for the Spike ATGM with Israel but scraped it in the meantime.

The decision was taken in order to decrease the dependency on foreign vendors for the requirements. This will also be a learning experience new technologies on its own which will be beneficial in long run.

DRDO has successfully developed two types of ATGM’s: the Nag and Anamika, but the ATGM’s are not portable and can only be attached to armored vehicles. It will be interesting to see how DRDO will develop a portable ATGM system in a short time.